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Declaration of Independence 



COLONY OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY 



MAY 1, 1776. xo, 





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To all '■'-"» ivhom thefe Trefents flail ccim, Grcrting. 

Know ye. That we hare 
afTigned and confticuted, and do by thcfe Prefents 
alTign, conllitute and appomt Our Trufty and well- 



beloved 



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to be one of Out Juftices to ke'i' Our Peace 

y£*"«/^ <7%( And to keep jnd caufe to be kept, the Lawe and Ordinances made for the Good of the 

Peace and f»r the Confervaiion of the fame, and for the Quiet, Rule and Government of 
Our People in the faid County, in all and every the Articles thereof according to the Force, 
Form and Eff<a ti the fame, and to chifiifc and puniOi all Pprfonj offending againA the Form 
of ihofe Lawj and Ordinances or any of ihem in the County aforcfaid, as according to the 
Form of ihole Laws and Ordinances Aall be fit to be done ; And to caufe to come before 
him the (aid /\}£//?^ a^^Z-t^-} /^/^l.^.^^. , ail thofc ihjt Aall break the Peace, or 
sliempi any Thing afaintl the famt, or that fhall ihreaien any of our People in their Perfons, 
burning their Houfet, to £nd fufficieni Security for the Peace, and for the good 
Eekaviour towards Us and our People ; and if ihey (ball refufc to fnd fuch Security, then 
to caufe them to be kept fafe in Prifon until ihey fhall find the f»m« ;,'jinJ to do jhJ per- 
form in the County aforcfaid, all and whatfocvcr, according to the Laws and Ordinances ot our^^ 
faid Province, or any of ihem, a Juflite of the Peace may and ought to do and perforin j^i/f-i£/ — 

'^ /Pf/Jrf^J ^/^Z^ ■ 'f""°fding to jhe Tenourof ik* Coramiffion to them granted) to enquire by the Oaths of good 
O / / w^ A*( J ^^^ lawful Men of our faid County, by whom the Truth may be better known, of all and 
J^^l^ flf JP "II manner of Thefts, TrefpaiT.!. Riotj, Routs and unlawful Alfemblies whaifoever, and all 
§^/ i-t^''*^^^'^^ >nd (iigular other Mifdecda and Offences of which by Law Jufiices of the Peace in their Genc- 

(7 /fk,f ■ J' "' ^'"i""' ""'y ""i ought to enquire, by whomfoever or howsoever done" o> perpetrated, or 

ZCOV?-2—^ ,^ which (hall lic,c.f,„ h,ppc,.. ho*ro.-r .o be d.ne or altemplfil m .he County >f=.'l..,d, ton- 

^ trary to .he Form of ,h. Laws and Ordinances ^"'tg. ™''^''- "" '-omT^mCo^i of 
our Province aforeCid and the People thereof; /c/^ l^eyZ"^ O^^iy ^^^>o £r^ > 

^ . ^('^ , , ^ <r._ .- .1, „ I ,. .f.,.^,l,^^ ,« »,-„ jnd it- '^ 



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(according ei ,he Tencur of the Comwi'llhon to them granted as aforcfaid) to he. 
termine all and f.ngular ihe faid Thefts, TrelpafTes, Riots, Routs, unlawful AfTemblies, and all and 
fmgular other the Premifti, and to do her 
Statutes and Ordinances aforcfaid. 



. Jufticc appertaineth, according i 



Laws, 



JN TESTIMONY Tf^HEREOF. H^t liive cmfid lU foUic Siil tfjur prnince 
cf ibt Maffaehufetti-Bay i/.re/i/V, M ii hrtuilt affitei : WITNESS >?fe- ^2^ ' 







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LETTER TO HON. LUTHER BRADISH. 



MoEEiSANiA, N. y., Jan. 7, 1862. 
Hon. Luther Bkadish, 

President of the A%d York Historical Society. 

My Dear Sir : I beg leave, through you, to invite the 
attention of the Society to a subject which seems to me to 
possess unusual interest to every student of American his- 
tory. 

In the course of my investigations concerning the Con- 
stitution of the United States, preparatory to the writing 
of a history of that instrument, my attention was arrested 
by the very important series of papers — generally unno- 
ticed by commentators and historians — which, in the early 
part of 1776, had emanated from several of the colonial 
governments de facto , and had conveyed to the delegations 
from those colonies, severally, the Instructions under which 
their respective delegations in the Congress had been ex- 
pected to act on the question of independence. 

Among the colonies from which, apparently, no such 
Instructions had proceeded, — notwithstanding the fact has 
been well established that three-fourths of her towns, in 
regularly convened town-meetings, had particularly in- 
structed their several representatives in the General Court 
to prepare and transmit such Instructions to the delegates 
from the colony to the General Congress, — was Massachu- 
setts, whose fearless and eloquent representatives, in case 



2 LKTTiai TO HON. LUTIIKK BKADISH. 

no sueli Instructions bad Leen issued to them Lj the Gen- 
eral Court, must have acted on their own responsibility, 
wlicn, on the second of July, 1776, they jointly cast the 
vote of Massachusetts in favor of the resolution of Ameri- 
can independence. 

Notwithstanding the, apparently, well- settled opinion 
among historical students, that no such Instructions had 
been adopted and issued by the General Court ; and wdth 
a respectful disregard of the rea^ns Avhich were assigned, 
by one of the most distinguished of our number, for the 
supposed backwardness of Massachusetts, in thus promot- 
ing the cause of American independence, I ventured to 
doubt that that colony had really so far forgotten herself, 
as to allow her delegation to support and urge the adop- 
tion of the resolution of independence, with no other au- 
thority than the implied approval of its constituency; and 
to entertain an abiding confidence, that if it were reallj 
true, that the delegation from Massachusetts had received 
no such Instructions when it cast the vote of that colony 
in favor of the resolution of the second of July, it possessed, 
at least, a full equivalent of authority in some other form. 

I could readily understand why our own New York — 
at that time controlled by the great landed interests ; rep- 
resented in the Congress by delegates whose fidelity to the 
cause of America was, generally, of a questionable charac- 
ter ; and Avhose Provincial Congress, at that time, w' as led 
by an avowed and untiring opponent of independence and 
a republican form of government — had refused to grant 
authority to her delegation in the Congress to support the 
resolution of independence ; and the consequent silence of 
that delegation on the second of July, — when the United 
Colonies, in Congress assembled, "without a dissenting 



LETTER TO HON. LUTHER BRADISH. O 

vote," solemnly resolved " that tliese United Colonies are, 
and of right ought to be, free and independent States ; 
that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British 
crown; and that all political connection between them 
•and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally 
dissolved," — is not more of a mystery. All this I could 
readily understand ; but I was not equally favored con- 
cerning the alleged silence of Massachusetts, the desecra- 
tion of whose capital town, by the discomfited ministerial 
troops, was still fresh in the memory of all her inhabitants ; 
whose press, under the patriotic influence of Edes and 
Gill, was constantly true to its mission; whose people 
were not a whit the less determined, notwithstanding the 
enemy had evacuated her territory; whose sentiments 
were fitly represented in the Congress by the fearlessness 
and the unanswerable arguments of the two Adamses. 

Entertaining these varied opinions, during a recent visit 
to Boston, I visited the State House for the purpose of 
searching, among the well-culled treasures of the Secre- 
tary's ofiice, for a solution of the question. The kind co- 
operation of my valued friend, George Livermore, Esq., 
secured for me a cordial reception ; and, after a short ex- 
amination of the manuscript minutes of the commonwealth, 
I found an instrument which sets the subj ect at rest. 

After the royal governor of the colony had abandoned 
his post of duty, and had retired to a more genial climate, 
the administration of the colonial government was con- 
tinued by the Council, without changing the style of the 
government ; and all commissions, civil and military, were 
issued by that body, in the name, and under the authority, 
of the king of Great Britain, as had been usual in former, 
and more peaceful days. 



4 LETTER TO nON. LUTHER BRADISH. 

It was not long, however, before the inconsistency of 
such a course became very apparent ; and the tendency it 
had to keep up ideas which were inconsistent with the 
safety of the government, soon gave the good people of 
the colony great unea&iness ; and a remedy was sought by 
means of which the officers and people of the colony might 
not, themselves, be forced to become their own accusers, 
in a charge of rebellion and treason against a monarch in 
whose name, and under whose authority they professed to 
act. 

Accordingly, in the spring of 1776, the General Court 
applied a remedy, — the Council, on the first of May, in 
that year consummating the enactment of " An Act for 
Establishing the stile of Commissions lohich shall hereafter 
he Issued, and for altering the stile of Writs, Processes, 
and all Law proceedings within this Colony ^ and for 
directing hoio Recognizances to the Use of this Government^ 
ihallfor the future he taken and ])rosecutedP 

In that act, after declaring, in a preamble, the causes 
which had induced it to do so, the General Court solemnly 
enacted that on and after the first day of June next ensu- 
ing, all the officers of the colony, civil and military, should 
receive their authority from, and perform the duties of 
their several offices in the name of " The Government and 
People of the Massachusetts Bay, in ISTew England ;" 
that on and after that date, the king of Great Britain 
should no longer be recognized as the source of political 
authority within that colony ; that all commissions which 
had been issued by the Council, in his name and under 
his authority, before that date, should cease and determine 
within a few weeks from that time — on the nineteenth of 
September, 1776 ; that all recognizances should thence- 



LETTER TO^HON. LUTHER BRADISH. 5 

forth be taken and prosecuted in the name of the newly 
organized sovereign power; and that all actions which 
had been commenced in the name of the king, should, 
thenceforth, be prosecuted in the name and for the benefit 
of " The Government and People of the Massachusetts 
Bay in JS^ew England," in whom, thenceforth, the sover- 
eign authoritj, de facto and dejure, was, by the operations 
of that Act, vested. \_J 

On the evening of the same day, "while examining the 
manuscript treasures in the private collection of my friend, 
J. Wingate Thoknton, Esq., of Brookline, t also found 
three commissions which, prior to the passage of the Act 
to which I have referred, had been issued by the Council of 
the colony, in the name and by authority of the king. 
These commissions, of course, had been affected by the pro- 
visions of that Act ; and their bearers, in accordance with 
its requirements, had presented them to the Council for re- 
authorization under the authority of the newly established 
sovereignty of "The Government and People of the 
Massachusetts Bay in New England," which, under the 
provisions of the Act referred to, had succeeded to the 
former authority of the king. This had been done by the 
erasure of the usual words " GEOKGE the THIRD, By 
the Grace of GOD, of Great Britain, Fkance, and 
Ireland, KING, Defender of the Eaith, &c.," at the 
head of the commission, and the substitution in their stead 
by interlineation, of " The GOVERNMENT and PEO- 
PLE OF the MASSACHUSETTS BAY in NEW ENG- 
LAND ;" and by the erasure of the words of the date oi 
the commission, at its foot, as " In the [sixteenth] year of 
his reign,^^ and t^ie substitution in their stead, by inter- 
lineation, of the year of the Christian era, in which the 



6 I.KTIKK Ti) 1U)N. LDTIII* BRADISH. 

commission li:ul hceii issued hy tlie Council. A certifi- 
cate, over the official signature of the clerk of the Council, 
verified the change Avhicli had been made in the language 
of the instrument ; and continued its authority, in the 
name of " The Government and People of the Massachu- 
setts Bay in New England," which, after the nineteenth 
of September succeeding, it would not otherwise have 
possessed, notwithstanding the impression of the authority 
of George III, was borne on the face of the instrument.* 
I may have attributed a greater degree of importance 
to these instruments than they really merit, yet I cannot 
forbear suggesting to the Society that therein we have a 
formal renunciation of the authority of the king, within 
the territorial limits of Massachusetts, and as formal an 
assumption of the prerogatives of sovereignty, by "The 
Government and People of the Massachusetts Bay in 
New England," on the first day of May, 1776, — two 
months and two days before the adoption of the resolution 
of independence, by the United Colonies, in Congress as- 
sembled ; and that, as Massachusetts was, thenceforth, de 
facto, an independent and sovereign State, the delegation 
which she had sent to the Congress of the Confederation, 
needed no special authority to reiterate, in her name, the 
Act of Independence and assumption of sovereignty, which, 
through her legally constituted government, she had, 
already and directly, adopted and promulgated. 

** My antiquarian friend, George Adlakd, Esq., to whom I have sub- 
mitted the original commissions, here referred to, has suggested the prob- 
ability that the royal colonial seal which, originally, had been attached to 
them, was also taken ofif, by the same authority, in order the more com- 
pletely to destroy every appearance of royal authority ; and the appearance 
of the mutilated papers gives weight to his view. 



LETCEK TO HON. LUTHER BKADISH. 7 

I had expected to have placed before you, with this, a 
carefully prepared and certified copy of the Act to which 
I have referred, but it has not come to hand. It will be 
forwarded to you, to be filed with this letter, at an early 
day. 

I have the honor to be 

Your obedient servant, 

HENEY B. DAWSOK 



THE ACT OF MAY 1, 1776, 

Referred to in the preceding Letter to the 
Hon. Luther Bradish. 



In the Year of our Lord One Thousand seven hun- 
'- ■ dred and Seventy six, — 

An Act for Establishing the stile of Commissions which 
shall hereafter be Issued and for altering the stile of 
writs Processes, and all Law proceedings within this 
Colony and for directing how Recognizances to the Use 
of this Government shall for the future be taken and 
prosecuted. 

"Whereas the Petitions of the United Colonies to George 
the Third King of Great Brittain for the redress of Great 
and manifest Greveances have not only been rejected but 
treated with scorn And Contempt And their Opposition 
to designs evidently formed to reduce them to a state of 
servile Subjection and their necessary defence against hos- 
tile forces Actually Employed to subdue have been declared 
Rebellion. And whereas an unjust war has been Com- 
menc'd Against them which the Commanders of Brittish 
fleets and Armies have prosecuted and still Continue to 
prosecute with their utmost Vigour in Cruel manners & 



ACT OF MAT 1, 177G. 9 

have directed their Yengance principally against this 
Colony wasting spoiling and destroying the Country burn- 
ing Houses and defenceless Towns and Exposing the help- 
less Inhabitants to every misery; — by which Inhumane 
and Barbarous treatment by the Commandment of George 
the Third King of Great Brittain &c — the People of this 
Colony consider themselves greatly Injur'd and have been 
oblidged to have recourse to arms to repel such Injuries. 
And whereas under such Circumstances the absurdity of 
Issuing Commissions, Writs Processes and other proceed- 
ings in Law and in the Courts of Justice within this 
Colony in the name and stile of the King of Great Brit- 
tain is very apparent, And the Tendency it has to keep 
up Ideas inconsistant with the safty of this Government 
has given the Good People of this Colony Great Un- 
easiness. 

BE IT THEKEFORE enacted by the Council and House 
of Representitives in General Court Assemble'd and by 
the Authority of the same that all Civil Commissions 
Writs and Precepts for Conveneing the General Court or 
Assembly which shall hereafter be made out in this Colo- 
ny shall be in the Stile and name of the Government & 
People of the Massechusetts Bay in JSTew England And 
all Commissions both Civil & Military shall be Dated in 
the Year of the Christian era and shall not bear the date 
of the Year of the Peign of any King or Queen of Great 
Brittain. 

And that all writs Processes and Proceedings in Law 
And in any of the Courts of Justice in this Colony which 
have been used & Accustumed or by any of the Laws of 
this Colony are Required to be Issued used or Practiced 
in Law and in Any of the Courts of Justice in this Colony 



10 ACT OF MAY 1, 1776. 

in the name and stile of tlic King of Great Brittain France 
and Ireland Defender of the faith &c or in any other 
words Implying or Intending the same shall from and 
after the first Day of June One thousand seven hundred 
and seventy six be made Issued Used & Practiced in tlie 
name and stile of the Government & People of the Mas- 
sechusetts Bay in 'New England and no other and shall 
bear Date of the Year of the Christian yEra and shall not 
bear the Date of the Year of the lieign of any King or 
Queen of Great Brittain LFntill some recommendation of 
the American Congress or Act order or Resolve of a Gen- 
eral American Leg^islature or of the Legislature of this 
Colony shall be made and passed otherwise directing and 
Prescribing. 

And be it Enacted that all Commissions Civil and Mil- 
itary which have been Issued by the major part of the 
Council of this Colony scnee the nineteentb day of Sep- 
tember One Thousand seven hundred and seventy five 
shall have the same force and Efiect as if this Act had not 
been made the stile and Date therein notwithstanding Un- 
till the nineteenth day of September One Thousand seven 
hundred & seventy six & no longer. 

PKOvroED NEVERTHELESS that whcu auy such Commis- 
sions shall be brought to the Council of this Colony to be 
made Conformable to the Stile and Date by this Act Re- 
quired for Isuing Commissions hereafter the Council are 
hereby Impowered & Directed to Cause the same to be 
done. 

And be it further Enacted that all Recognisances that 
heretofore have been used and Accustomed to be taken to 
the King of Great Brittain by the Stile and Title of oui' 
Sovereign Lord the King shall from and after the first day 



ACT OF MAY 1, 1776. 11 

of June One thousand seven hundred and seventy six be 
taken to the Government & People of the Massechusetts 
Bay in ISTew England and when a scire facias or other 
Legal Process shall be Issued thereon Against the Recog- 
nizor or Recognisors they shall be in the name and behalf 
of the said Government and People. And when Judg- 
ment shall be rendered thereon the money Recovered & 
Levied shall be paid into the treasury of this Colony for 
the use of the same. 

And be it fukther Enacted that all Suits upon Recogn- 
zanes which have been heretofore taken within this Colo- 
ny to the Eang of Great Brittain under any name Char- 
acter or form of words whatsoever that have been or that 
may be hereafter forfeited (if any Suits should be brought 
thereon) shall from and after the said first day of June be 
Commenced & prosecuted in the name and behalf of the 
Government & People of the Massechusetts Bay in ISTew 
England and not in the name of the said King And the 
Money Recovered and Levied on such Suits shall be like- 
wise paid into the Treasury of this Colony for the use and 
Benefit of the said People. 

Li the house of Representative's May 1, 1776 This 
engrossed bill having had three several readings 
passed to be Enacted 

Sam'^ Fkeeman, Speak' P. T. 

In Council May 1" 1776. 

This Engrossed Bill having had two several Readings 
passed to be enacted 

Perez Morton D Sec'r^ 



12 ACr OF MAY 1, 1776. 

WE consent to the enacting of this Bill 
T Gushing 



James Otis 
W Sever 
B Greenleaf 
W Spooner 
Caleb Gushing 

J WiNTHROP 

B Ghadbourn 



Jed" Foster 
Eldad Taylor 
Moses Gill 

S HOLTEN 

B Lincoln 



James Prescott 
Michael Farlet 



[l. 6.] 



Secretary's Office, Boston, 
January 31, 1862. 

A true copy of the original. 
Witness the Seal of the Commonwealth. 
Oliver Wakneb, 
Secretary of the Commonwealth. 



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